138 Charles Daviclso7i — English Mystery Flays. 



And when the church services, following the incidents of His life, 

 came around to the dates of His death and resurrection, what longing 

 must have possessed them to present vividly to the ignorant and 

 heedless multitude those moments now stored for them with such 

 sacred meaning ! 



The liturgical drama, therefore, is the legitimate outgrowth of a 

 situation well stated b}^ Dr. Schaff : 



In the sacrifice of the mass the whole mysterious fulness and glory of the 

 Catholic worship is concentrated. Here the idea of the priesthood reaches its 

 dizzy summit, and here the devotion and awe of the spectator rises to the high- 

 est pitch of adoration.^ 



Or it may be stated in words which the Catholic Church accepts : 



The Church commemorates every day the bloody sacrifice of Jesus Christ on 

 the Cross, by a true and real unbloody sacrifice ; in which she offers to God the 

 same body and blood that were given for the sins of the world. ^ 



These words, through continual repetition and the unbelief of our 

 day, no longer appeal, even to those who accept them, with a tithe 

 of the force with which they impressed the credulous minds of 

 mediaeval times. To them the immediate result was a notable 

 increase in the spirit of devotion, which expressed itself in the elabo- 

 rate rituals, and in the desire to present this awful sacrifice to the 

 people as vividly as the priests themselves felt it. This dramatic 

 development of the liturgy did not owe its origin to the frivolous 

 and irreverent among the clergy, though these, doubtless, eagerly 

 seized upon it for amusement, but to the reverent desire of the pious 

 to present Christ's life vividly to the people, a desire that could now 

 find true dramatic expression, since the Mass was no longer a symbol, 

 but a veritable life history, closing before the eyes of the spectators 

 in a most sublime self-sacrifice. 



Thus it came about that under the new view of the Eucharist the 

 liturgy presented dramatic moments of heightened interest at each 

 salient point of Christ's career. These fall naturally into two groups : 

 those of his birth and childhood, and those that pertain to his death 

 and resurrection, the latter forming a group of most intensely dra- 

 matic value. 



As Sunday after Sunday the people see the Christ actually lifted 

 up before them, the sense of the reality of the sacrifice grows. 

 When with Holy Week the altars are stripped and continual suppli- 

 cation and lamentation fill the church, they are prepared to feel on 



1 Schaff, vol. 3, p. 505. 2 The Office of the Holy Week. 



